Still waiting for perfect

You have a great idea. A research technique or plan. Or an idea for a prototype.

With just a few more things in place you’d be able to do it. With just more discussion you’d be able to get it just right. And then you can do that thing.

But it won’t.

You’ll be waiting for perfect forever.

Not only will it not happen but it starts blocking other similar things from delivering value. From getting stuff done.

There’s nothing more toxic than perfect. It blocks getting small stuff done. It means nothing similar can be completed. And nothing else learned. Because “why are we doing this first, when we could do this [perfect] thing?”

And because perfect is always waiting for that last thing to finish it off, it’s always out of date. So when things do align you’re getting back to almost done. And never done.

If you’re struggling with waiting for perfect ask yourselves and colleagues what’s stopping you from doing it right now.

Ask yourself if there’s a way to do it even imperfectly in the next two weeks.

Get it done in an imperfect way and learn something. Once you test something you’ll find perfect wasn’t real anyway.

Learn something. Stop waiting for perfect.